****"Take Me Around The World Again James"****

Michel Lonsdale plays Hugo Drax, billionaire industrialist has a scheme to exterminate the undesirables and impose a new world order from no less than outer space. Adolph Hitler with all his theories on racial purity is a piker compared to what Lonsdale has in mind.

Roger Moore is 007 in Moonraker and British Intelligence brings him in when a US space satellite is hijacked in mid flight. The satellite was designed by Lonsdale's company and when Moore starts investigating Lonsdale, some very nasty traps are set for him, all of which James Bond has to elude.

The official Bond girl in Moonraker is Lois Chiles playing Dr. Goodhead, part time scientist and part time CIA employee. Does she live up to her name, you have to watch Moonraker to find out. Her scientific skills are even more valuable than her romantic ones.

Richard Kiel returns as super villain Jaws. He was a most menacing figure in The Spy Who Loved Me and Cubby Brocoli must have thought he was good enough to use again as he survives in that film. In Moonraker he does the bidding of Lonsdale, but Moore makes the rather logical argument that the racially perfect world that Lonsdale has in mind will have no need of freakish people like him. Kiel has to do some serious reassessment in Moonraker.

Moonraker got an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, but lost to another classic space adventure, Alien.

Even with three succeeding James Bonds, Moonraker remains my favorite film with my favorite 007, Roger Moore. Just the breathtaking extent of the villainy gets me every time I see it.

My score 7/10.

El villano en turno del universo Bond roba un transbordador, el espía investiga y descubre un lunático plan eugenésico que pretende poner en órbita a especímenes humanos perfectos (y a Jaws con una tierna muchacha nerd de la que se ha enamorado) para repoblar el planeta una vez que la humanidad desaparezca por medio de una toxina extraída de la exótica Orquídea negra endémica del Amazonas, que en la antigüedad acabó con la civilización maya ubicada en esa región del planeta. Pero el espía con licencia para sabotear planes demoniacos de científicos locos y empresarios megalómanos está allí para poner en riesgo a personas inocentes y fornicar con cuanta mujer sea posible, así sea en la tierra como en el espacio.

Que pésima película, es tremendamente ridícula, no sólo el argumento y las pésimos efectos especiales, es terrible incluso en los detalles como la paloma asombrada al ver una góndola anfibia recorriendo una plaza. Entiendo que los productores de la película querían explotar el fanatismo por la ciencia ficción que había despertado Star Wars dos años antes, pero nada es justificación para embarcar a Bond en la peor de las aventuras espaciales.
En cualquier lugar, incluso en los peores lugares, se aprender grandes lecciones, aquí unas malas ideas (y buenas) que aporta la película.

Malas ideas:

[spoiler]Transportar un transbordador espacial con el tanque de combustible lleno.
Lanzarse en caída libre sin un paracaídas.
Internarse en el bosque cuando un par de perros te persiguen, y no usar el carrito de golf que tienes a tu disposición.
Un falso cortejo fúnebre para asesinar a Bond, con un asesino diestro en lanzar objetos puntiagudos, escondido en un féretro.
Un disfraz de tocotín para pasar inadvertido (aunque estés en medio de un carnaval, no deja de ser una muy mala idea).
Tener la lanzadera del transbordador espacial justo arriba de la sala de juntas de tu empresa.
Pensar que caminar en cámara lenta crea la sensación de ingravidez. [/spoiler]

Buena idea:

[spoiler]Usar los dientes para cortar el cable de un teleférico.
Usar una cadena para descolgarse en caso de que alguien haya mordido el cable del teleférico.
Tomar el curso de “Manejo de Transbordadores Espaciales” que la CIA imparte a sus empleados. [/spoiler]

A Space Shuttle disappears after a hijacking. There’s a crash but it’s nowhere to be found in the wreckage. Bond is sent to investigate. His first port of call is the manufacturer, Drax industries.

We’re flying high after The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker starts on a promising note. Bond gets pushed out of a plane without a parachute. Someone else is on their way down already and he has to catch up, steal their parachute and fight off other bad guys before hitting the ground.

This is a brilliantly executed scene that clearly took a lot of work. I since read they did 88 skydives to complete the shot, it was not a waste of time.

Bond plummets and manages to pull his chute just in time, but unfortunately Moonraker decides to go splat head first into the ground. Things start to go south very early on, in that same scene even, when Jaws (yes, the same Jaws from the last film) has a parachute failure but fortunately manages to fall onto a circus tent.

The stupid tone continues throughout. Coffins with knives hidden in them, gondola hovercrafts, boats with hang gliders built in… One wonders if this is supposed to be some sort of Austin Powers style parody.

It’s not all bad. Roger Moore is comfortable and fun to watch on screen, he’s got the role down to a tee now. However it’s already starting to feel as though he just turns up, looks at women, says jokes and goes home. There’s a lot more stunt work involved here, including liberal head-on shots of the doubles. Moore just doesn’t feel quite as involved.

He gets paired up with CIA agent Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles, and no I did not make up the character name). Again the notion of having the two as professional partners works in the film’s favour, but for some reason she gets largely written out of the story until the last half hour.

Richard Kiel is back as Jaws. This is a bad idea. He seems to serve no purpose other than to milk out the success from the previous film.

Michael Lonsdale plays Drax, the villain. He does manage to capture some of the petulance that all good crazy villains have, but all in all he’s not particularly threatening.

This isn’t helped by the fact that his plan (and therefore the plot) is never going to work. He wants to wipe out the world and breed a master race of sexy people on a space station. Even Bond calls him out on how stupid this is and Bond is a fucking idiot.

The last 45 minutes or so occur in space, another terrible misstep. Shamelessly trying to cash in on the success of Star Wars is a waste of everyone’s time, especially when they had just started making James Bond work on its own merit again.

As with all slap-dash sci-fi, these scenes raise far too many questions. How did they get anti-gravity stuff to work? How and why do NASA have laser guns? How did NASA even manage to scramble a space shuttle with a ten minute warning? It’s frustrating, and encourages us to point out flaws rather than to enjoy the film.

One more thing; there’s yet another stupid shoot out at the end that goes on forever. It could be argued that they shouldn’t have made the film at all, but if they insist, they why make us sit through these ridiculous scenes that drag on and on? Edit it out!

This is easily the worst film we’ve seen so far. From the forgettable theme tune to the idiotic space battle, Moonraker has stolen two hours of our time without giving anything back at all.

http://benoliver999.com/film/2015/06/14/moonraker/

James Bond in space doing goofy things and Jaws falling in love with a girl that he just met during his important mission to kill Mr. Bond. I'm sorry, but is this a James Bond movie or an 'Austin Powers' movie?

This has to be the most cheesiest and the most gooiest James Bond film I've seen out of them all. The visual effect's at times can looking good, but most of the times it looks out dated. I loved the character Jaws. I though he was pretty awesome in the other Bond films, but here he falls in love... wait WHAT?!

The good things about the film: Roger Moore once again does a fine job playing Mr. Bond. The theme song was nice to listen to, even when it's not the best theme song for a James Bond film, and yet, I still found something to like in it. And the movie may be a comedy at times with it's cheesiest, but I still enjoyed those parts of the film because it's very rare to see that in a James Bond film.

Overall rating: 'Moonraker' is a straight up goofy ball with a plot that goes nowhere, and a boring main villain. But the movie can be laughable but in a good way and I found some enjoyment in that.

This has the great 007 elements, but misses a bit.
We get the wit, we get the beautiful women, we get the gadgets, we get the non stop action, and we even get Jaws, a fan favorite, back. Jaws even gets to speak. Maybe it was in the contract.
What is missing is the exotic locations and beautiful scenery. We do get outer space and jungles and water, but we don't quite get the exotic beauty that makes Bond films so spectacular.
While the cinematography is not as good as others in the hay day, it does still beat the 21st century Bond movies which are so dull.
Here, the victim is a maniac intent on genocide. His plan is insane, but he's a tycoon and that just makes him "eccentric" to other VIPs.
The big scene is possibly during a festival, when Bond is accompanied by a beauty who keeps lookout while he goes into a building. The beauty notices a tall masked character edging ever closer to her.
There's also the space battle, which doesn't work as well as the underwater battle of Thunderball, but it isn't bad. The direciton is pretty solid. It's just not a great milieu for a cinematic battle.
All in all,it's an exciting film that gets hate from those who are jealous of entertainment that works, but it isn't in the top five. I rank it 7th greatest of the Bond films. Sometimes, I rank it 8th or 9th, but it keeps in that vicinity.